He still knew that any such consummation as that was quite out of the question.  The mother herself as she was now present to him, seemed to be a woman very different from the quiet, handsome, high-spirited, but low-voiced widow whom he had known, or thought that he had known, at Ardkill.  Of her as she had there appeared to him he had not been ashamed to think as one who might at some future time be personally related to himself.  He had recognized her as a lady whose outward trappings, poor though they might be, were suited to the seclusion in which she lived.  But now, although it was only to Ennis that she had come from her nest among the rocks, she seemed to be unfitted for even so much intercourse with the world as that.  And in the demand which she reiterated over him she hardly spoke as a lady would speak.  Would not all they who were connected with him at home have a right to complain if he were to bring such a woman with him to England as the mother of his wife.  “I can’t answer such a question as that on the spur of the moment,” he said.

“You will not dare to tell me that you mean to desert her?”

“Certainly not.  I was coming over to Ardkill this very day.  The trap is ordered.  I hope Kate is well?”

“She is not well.  How should she be well?”

“Why not?  I didn’t know.  If there is anything that she wants that I can get for her, you have only to speak.”

In the utter contempt which Mrs. O’Hara now felt for the man she probably forgot that his immediate situation was one in which it was nearly impossible that any man should conduct himself with dignity.  Having brought himself to his present pass by misconduct, he could discover no line of good conduct now open to him.  Moralists might tell him that let the girl’s parentage be what it might, he ought to marry her; but he was stopped from that, not only by his oath, but by a conviction that his highest duty required him to preserve his family from degradation.  And yet to a mother, with such a demand on her lips as that now made by Mrs. O’Hara,—­whose demand was backed by such circumstances,—­how was it possible that he should tell the truth and plead the honour of his family?  His condition was so cruel that it was no longer possible to him to be dignified or even true.  The mother again made her demand.  “There is one thing that you must do for her before other things can be thought of.  When shall she become your wife?”

It was for a moment on his tongue to tell her that it could not be so while his uncle lived;—­but to this he at once felt that there were two objections, directly opposed to each other, but each so strong as to make any such reply very dangerous.  It would imply a promise, which he certainly did not intend to keep, of marrying the girl when his uncle should be dead; and, although promising so much more than he intended to perform, would raise the ungovernable wrath of the woman before him.  That he should